DRX’s Tekken 7 player Knee (aka Jae-Min Bae, pictured) has been crowned the 2023 Red Bull Golden Letters champion.
He beat fellow South Korean player Hyunjin ‘JDCR’ Kim in an all-star grand final after a weekend of tense Tekken 7 action at the Red Bull Gaming Sphere in London.
The Grand Finals saw the former Losers’ bracket winner Knee landing a 3-0 win, with this victory triggering a winner-takes-all Grand Finals Reset. In this showdown, JDCR took the first KO but Knee didn’t go down without a fight, taking home the first round. Knee then went on to dominate the second round, confirming his title as the Red Bull Golden Letters 2023 in a remarkable 6-0 win.
Last Saturday saw an expanded 128-person Open Qualifiers take place, with eight aspiring pros staking their claim among the nation’s best to compete for their spot in the finals showdown.
“The European Tekken scene has changed quite a bit and a lot of the players I knew from an older era are now gone, but these new young players [like Tetsu and Hk Jr.], if they keep playing, will do very well competitively.”
Tekken 7 player Knee
Finals day played host to a series of epic matchups, with the qualifying finalists facing off against eight of the world’s best professional players, including Red Bull Player and Tekken pro Hoa ‘Anakin’ Luu, two-time Tekken EVO champion Hyunjin ‘JDCR’ Kim and three-time Tekken EVO Champion Jae-Min ‘Knee’ Bae, alongside last year’s British Red Bull Golden Letters 2022 champion Richie ‘AyoRichie’ Olusanya.
UK players AyoRichie, Gosain and JoKa finished fifth, sixth and seventh respectively.
Red Bull Golden Letters’ unique way-to-win format also made its return, incentivising perfect play and putting players under pressure as they raced to win in a first-to-three format. Players who managed to secure three of Tekken’s ‘Perfect’ or ‘Great’ scores – the eponymous ‘Golden Letters’ – won the entire set in these clashes.
And esports charts reported that the event drew more than 30,000 peak viewers.
Tekken 7 player Kick wins Golden Letters – here’s what happened in the different rounds
The first rounds kicked off with some upsets, seeing pros CHANEL and Chikurin defeated by qualifying underdogs Hussain ‘Gosain’ Shah and Akhil ‘Tetsu’ Kakar.
The Winner’s Quarter-Finals saw the qualifiers dominate some of the world’s best, with Haktan ‘HK Jr.’ Kocaman taking out the favourite of the tournament Knee with a sensational finish, while Gosain won over reigning Red Bull Golden Letters champion AyoRichie.
The Winner’s Semi-Finals saw Super Akouma battle HK Jr., the surprise of the tournament, with the latter adding another impressive underdog victory. Despite these underdog winnings, pro-player JDCR took down Gosain along the way.
The loser’s bracket saw a clash of titans between Anakin and Knee, with Knee scraping through with the win while last year’s champion AyoRichie was eliminated after being taken down by Super Akouma.
The Losers Semi-Final followed with Knee and Super Akouma battling it out for the Loser’s Final spot, with the pro progressing to the next round. The Winner’s Final featured JDCR facing off against HK Jr. and knocking him off his win streak while Knee got back-to-back Golden Letters, turning up the heat for an intense Losers Final progressing to the Grand Final.
There were a total of 26 Golden Letters victories throughout the competition. Across the tournament weekend, Red Bull Golden Letters winner Jae-Min ‘Knee’ Bae secured five of these victories, with two across the open qualifiers and another three achieved during the gripping finals day.
The tournament was hosted by UK fighting games icon Hassan ‘Spag’ Farooq and special guests Steven ‘Tasty Steve’ Scott, Rasheed ‘Bubsy’ Jenkins and Kobi ‘K-Wiss’ Scarlett.
UK fighting games legend Ryan Hart was also present:
The tournament also featured the Beat the Pro’ challenge, which saw players compete against the eight Tekken pros for a chance to win exclusive prizes, with four challengers emerging victorious.
Following his top performance throughout the tournament, newly-crowned Red Bull Golden Letters Champion and Tekken 7 player Knee commented: “I really enjoyed competing at Red Bull Golden Letters, it was a very freeing experience playing in front of a live audience! The Golden Letters rule set was also really refreshing, at first I thought getting three Greats or Perfect would be very difficult to do but I found out it was possible and whenever you do it, it’s very exciting for the fans.
“I also noticed that whenever my opponents had two golden points, I really felt the pressure – this unique format has been great as I found that Tekken 7 has been getting very stale.
“I have played against JDCR for a long time and usually coming from the losers bracket it’s very difficult to beat him, but when I finally got up there in the final I was happy there were two South Koreans in the Grand Final. The European Tekken scene has changed quite a bit and a lot of the players I knew from an older era are now gone, but these new young players [like Tetsu and Hk Jr.], if they keep playing, will do very well competitively.”
Red Bull Golden Letters host Hassan ‘Spag’ Farooq, commented after the Grand Final: “It’s great to see Red Bull Golden Letters return and be bigger and better! This time, we got the opportunity to invite eight professionals to compete, which meant we had a global pool of spectacular Tekken 7 players to choose from.
“The tournament delivered unforgettable and unpredictable moments, with amateurs like HK Jr. and Gosain showing the South Korean legends what the European Tekken scene has to offer.
“Many of these European players look up to and learn their skills from players like Knee and CHANEL, so to see some of them get as far as they did is incredible to watch.”
There’s more info on the Red Bull Golden Letters website.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
